This paper investigates the effect of private pensions on the retirement wealth distribution. We incorporate stochastic private pension coverage into a calibrated life-cycle model with stochastic earnings. Private pensions lead to higher net worth inequality at retirement, which is closer to the inequality observed in the PSID than a model without private pensions. However, the offset effect of...

This paper examines the relationship between the cross-sectional and lifetime income distributions using a simple model of relative income mobility. It asks whether cross-sectional comparisons between countries can provide a good indication of lifetime inequality differences if income mobility is similar, and whether lifetime inequality increases by less than cross-sectional inequality if the l...

We analyze the pricing of a productive asset in a class of dynamic exchange economies with heterogeneous, infinitely–lived agents, and self–enforcing intertemporal trades. Individual incomes fluctuate and are correlated; preferences, dividends and aggregate income are fixed. Almost all economies in this class have a unique stationary Markovian equilibrium with fluctuations in asset prices. As t...

We model virtue as an asset on the marriage market: since men value virginity in prospective mates, preserving their virtue increases girls’ chances of getting a "good" husband, and therefore allows for upward social mobility. Consistent with some historical and anthropological evidence, we find that the diffusion (and the social value) of virginity, across societies and over time, can be deter...

We estimate the size of inheritance flows in Switzerland as a share of total wealth and of national income over a long span of data, in close analogy to the study for France by Piketty (2011). We find that the relative importance of inheritance had been falling slightly up until the 1970s, but has been increasing strongly since. According to our central estimates, the annual flow of inheritance...

Based on the economic theory of the family, this paper constructs a model of remittances where the migrant, besides sending money to his family, also invests in his home country. The investment is looked after by a family member in return for some monetary compensation. The model focuses on two different cases: state-contingent transfers (transfers are tied to investment outcomes) and fixed tra...

In this paper a new method to estimate the equivalence scale elasticity using individual panel data on income satisfaction will be developed. In contrast to other subjective approaches, the present one benefits from the fact that no direct cardinal individual welfare function has to be specified. In addition, panel data enables different scale use by the respondents to be controlled. The approa...

The constrained egalitarian solution of Dutta and Ray (1989) for TUgames is extended to asymmetric cases, using the notion of weight systems as in Kalai and Samet (1987,1988). This weighted constrained egalitarian solution is based on the weighted Lorenz-criterion as an inequality measure. It is shown that in general there is at most one such weighted egalitarian solution for TU-games. Existenc...

This paper is an investigation of the third-degree stochastic dominance order which has been introduced in the context of risk analysis and is now receiving an increased attention in the area of inequality measurement. After observing that this partial order fails to satisfy the von Neumann-Morgenstern property in the space of random variables, we introduce strong and local third-degree stochas...

The existing superstar model (Rosen 1981) does not require imperfect substitutes and explains the convexity of total earnings with respect to talent due to higher output for those with the most talent. We develop a model that explains why per unit earnings (wages or prices) would increase at an increasing rate in talent. Imperfect substitution results due to the probabilistic nature of producti...